


Unsettle

by ardett



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Body Horror, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Magical Realism, Multiverse, Mythology References, Supernatural Elements, Vignette, nothing super bad happens just wanna make that clear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 22:13:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19282231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardett/pseuds/ardett
Summary: There's a rift and it swallows Bokuto and Kuroo.A series of linked vignettes





	1. the sanzu highway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is believed that the dead must cross the Sanzu River to pass onto the afterlife, a belief reflected in Japanese funerals when six coins are placed in the casket with the dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt: supernatural

i. the sanzu highway

 

In the late night, there are pennies left on the ground. Odd, nearly worthless pieces of American scrap metal. Odder still is their location, here in this deserted suburb, tangled in grass, dusted and grimed in soil, far off any path a tourist would travel.

Bokuto reaches down for it. His knees ache as he crouches. Under the shadow of his hand and without the glint of the streetlamp, it flickers out of existence. A moment before it does, Bokuto sees its face, heads up, some US president with a string of flowers around his neck. No, wait, that was just the collar of an upturned shirt.

Kuroo snatches the coin out from beneath Bokuto’s fingers and holds it up the light. A ray of light, foggy and filled with gnats, shines through the center of the 5 yen coin.

A noise seeps out of the back of Bokuto’s throat, startled. His hand falls back against the ground as his crouched stance falters. The ground he meets is cold. Shifting. Metallic.

He looks down. There’s no dirt, no soil, no rock. Only coins, layers of coins as his fingers sink in.

Grass tickles his palm. The grass grows from nothing, from the alloyed faces of the coins.

“What--” Bokuto scrambles to his feet, coming away with a handful of the coins. The darkness of the woods presses in. He can’t hear any cars coming down the road. It’s been a long time since he last heard one.

He shivers suddenly, like he’s stepped foot into a river.

Kuroo flicks his coin into the woods. It clinks against the others. “These are worthless,” he mutters. “They’ve already been used.”

“Huh?” Bokuto glances down at his hands. There’s another penny, a 50 yen coin, a Russian ruble, a Euro coin for 10 cents, a nickel. The ones he recognizes are misprinted, he realizes. Characters misaligned, lines missing, chunks taken out.

He’s overwhelmed with the sense that he’s taken something that isn’t his.

He drops the coins, wincing with each dull chime of metal on metal. When he takes a step back towards the road, it feels like wading through water. The streetlights seem to dim.

“Kuroo, I think we should go,” he whispers.

“Yeah,” Kuroo agrees. His eyes are dark, so dark, and his fingers are tarnished, like he’s spent all day laying coins in caskets. “We’re not supposed to be here yet.”

When they walk away, nothing drags them back.


	2. red sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This galaxy is a tiny one. It only has one sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt: galaxies/universe

ii. red sun

 

“There’s a sun in there,” Bokuto murmurs. They’re curled together like quotation marks. The line of the couch’s arm is firm against Kuroo’s back. Bokuto’s spine runs along his stomach and down his hip.

Kuroo brushes the hair back from Bokuto’s forehead. “What was that?”

“I said there’s a sun in there,” Bokuto repeats, a bit more insistently. He’s looking down at his own hands.

“Sun in where?” Kuroo presses further into Bokuto, trying to lean over his shoulder.

“In--” Bokuto abruptly pushes off Kuroo, wobbling to his feet. “I want to see it.”

Kuroo catches a handful of the back of Bokuto’s shirt. “Bo, come on,” he whines. “Where are you going?” His fingertips drag on the fabric before sliding off.

“The bathroom, to take a look,” Bokuto mutters. His steps are unsteady as he treks in that direction.

Kuroo gives a low groan into the empty living room as he slouches into the cushions. “There’s a sun in my bathroom?” He rubs a fist over his eyes and rolls over so he’s facing away from the light. “There’s not even a fucking window in my bathroom,” he mutters. Maybe he’ll catch a quick nap while his boyfriend messes around with suns in windowless rooms.

And then there’s a whimper.

Kuroo blinks his eyes back open. “There’s… not even…” A sun. No windows. Bokuto looking down at his hands.

A whimper.

Kuroo scrabbles to his feet.

“Bo,” his voice carries through the apartment. There’s a frantic note to it. “Bokuto, are you--”

He flings open the bathroom door and there’s blood, blood on the floor and sink and towels, and Bokuto is dragging his razor halfway up his forearm like he’s trying to look inside himself.

“What the fuck, oh shit, what the-- fuck, oh fuck--” Kuroo rips a hand towel off the wall and the hook clatters to the floor. He grabs Bokuto’s wrist and starts pressing down. “Oh my god.” His vision is blurring and maybe he’s tearing up, maybe it's just the shock, there’s just so much blood. “Bokuto-- Bokuto, what--”

“There’s a sun in my wrist,” Bokuto says, almost hazily.

“No there’s fucking not, you’re going to kill yourself-- Give me that razor, Bokuto, seriously, I’m not fucking joking--”

“No, look.” Bokuto starts pulling away from the towel.

“I don’t want to see. No, I really don’t want-- Bo, I’m fucking serious, I can’t-- I can’t--”

The towel slips off anyway, already soaked. “Jesus, fucking--” Kuroo can see where Bokuto sliced himself open and he covers his eyes, squinting through his fingers to try and grab ahold of Bokuto while not looking.

Bokuto starts gently pulling back the edges of the cut and Kuroo wants to throw up.

“Stop, please, _Koutarou, stop--”_

“Look.” Bokuto holds up his wrist, skin so softly peeled apart, and Kuroo can’t help himself.

He looks.

 

And there was never any blood. There was only light, dripping over Bokuto’s fragile skin. No stains on the towel, only charred streaks of black from the heat. All from the speck of radiance nested into Bokuto’s wrist.

“Oh…” Kuroo breathes. He runs a shaking finger over Bokuto’s split flesh. As he does, it seals itself back together with a sigh.

Beneath the smooth skin, there’s the faintest glow.

 

Days later, Kuroo finds blood underneath his fingernails, long dried. But whenever he looks, Bokuto’s wrist is still unblemished.


	3. yellow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you grow out of allergies. Sometimes you don't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt: intimacy

iii. yellow

 

Kuroo brushes a strand of hair behind Bokuto’s ear. There’s pollen on his fingers. “Hey,” he whispers as he kisses Bokuto’s cheek.

“Hey,” Bokuto whispers back. He feels petals tickling the back of his hand.

They’re sitting in a field of daffodils. The stalks are straight and strong, raising the cupped heads of the flowers. The sky is blue, turning yellow at the edges.

Bokuto doesn’t remember how they got here.

He glances behind him. There’s only a plain of swaying shades of yellow: canary, lemon, gold, blond, flaxen, champagne, fair, sunshine.

There’s so much pollen in the air. And he can’t hear the sounds of any insects.

“How… How did we--”

“Is that for me?” Kuroo asks. Bokuto’s gaze swivels back to him.

“I--” Kuroo points down at Bokuto’s hands. “Oh.” He’s holding a flower crown. He doesn’t remember making it, holding it, but his fingers are stained green and sore. “Um, yeah, it’s for you. Do you think it’s--”

“You should put it on me,” Kuroo interrupts. Bokuto’s fingers tighten on the crown and a stem snaps. “Make me your prince, babe.” Kuroo leans forwards, slinging his arms around Bokuto’s shoulders.

“Okay.” Bokuto doesn’t mean for his voice to come out timid but he can’t deny the way it sounds aloud. Kuroo doesn’t seem to notice.

Bokuto’s places the flower crown on Kuroo’s head. He blinks and it’s too big. The crown falls down onto Kuroo’s neck, resting on the sharp relief of his collarbones.

The flower crown isn’t made of daffodils, it’s made of carnations. Beautiful, full, frilled, yellow carnations.

Bokuto searches the ground around him, then the field as far as he can make out. There are no carnations. Just daffodils, hundreds of star-shaped daffodils all around them, crawling into the sky, making up the sun.

Daffodils, and that yellow string of carnations around Kuroo’s neck.

“Kuroo,” Bokuto hides his face in Kuroo’s neck, hands coming around to clutch at the back of the other’s shirt. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be here.”

Arms still slung over Bokuto, Kuroo’s hand comes up to caress the back of Bokuto’s neck. “Yeah,” Kuroo raises Bokuto’s face to meet his. “I know.”

When he kisses him, it tastes like pollen.


	4. glow worms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a tradition for years and years and years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt: partners in crime

iv. glow worms

 

“Give it here.” Kuroo waves a hand at Bokuto and Bokuto tosses him the spray paint. “This is going to be so sick,” Kuroo grins.

The paint comes out gleaming, like the bellies of glow worms. It’s miraculously opaque over the layers and layers of spray paint beneath it. Bokuto lets his eyes wander around the cave they’re in.

Somehow, between the slinking streets of Tokyo and the willowy crawl of forests on the city edges, generations of high school seniors had found this cave. Now it’s covered in everything they chose to leave behind.

There are hearts, names linked with plus signs, dripping crows of exultation, handprints scratching down the walls, dates spray painted over and over and over.

In the earliest hours of morning, the sun bleeds into this alcove, pooling into the footprints all over the ground. But they have chosen to come at twilight, and Bokuto’s fingers are green and sore from pressing down the aerosol can of glow-in-the-dark paint.

Bokuto drags his hand along the wall, tracing along the years there. Some date back 10 years, some even further. There’s another one with this year in purple, a senior who found their way to this cave in their final year. In gray, someone painted the date five years from now.

Bokuto pauses, fingers resting on that gray fading paint. It looks older than the words around. It looks older than the words underneath it.

“Hey, look at this. Isn’t it weir… What are you writing?” Bokuto turns back to Kuroo and the other boy hasn’t painted their names and graduating year like he promised. He hasn’t even sketched out the volleyball they joked about.

“What do you mean? I wrote our--” The paint can clatters to the ground. Kuroo gazes up at what he made, hands twitching at his sides.

Glowing symbols cover the wall. Bokuto can’t make out a word of it, if it’s words at all. There are no lines, just scattered, manic scrawls.

And handprints, so many handprints. Almost on every inch of the cave wall, over the not-words and under old spray paint and creeping up the ceiling, too far for either of them to reach.

Kuroo’s hands are clean but there’s something glowing seeping out from under his fingernails. They look like they’re shaking.

Bokuto comes up behind Kuroo and links their fingers together. Kuroo flinches but doesn’t let go.

When the glow drips onto Bokuto’s skin, it doesn’t burn.


	5. no heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things look different when you leave the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt: tattoos

v. no heat

 

“Where are these coming from?” Bokuto hooks a finger into Kuroo’s collar, pulling it down. The bruises that had been peeking above the shirt are revealed in full color, red in the middle and yellowing at the edges.

“Don’t worry about it.” Kuroo pushes Bokuto’s hand away. Bokuto doesn’t push back.

  
  


“Seriously, what are with these?” Bokuto insists. The bruises lace themselves along Kuroo’s neck and down his clavicle. They’re purple now, an angry scarlet ringing them.

Kuroo brings up a hand to rub at them but drops it before he gets there. “Fuck off,” he mutters with no heat.

  
  


A week from when Bokuto first saw them, they’re black as tattoos and starting to spread.

“You have to tell me what’s up.” He’s gotten Kuroo to take off his shirt under the pretense of sex and he hates lying, always has, but the bruises are starting to look more permanent than Kuroo. Like when someone sharpies a tombstone.

Kuroo scowls and goes to grab his shirt but Bokuto swings up himself onto Kuroo’s hips to hold him down.

“They’re nothing. They’re literally just bruises, what the hell is your deal, bro?” Kuroo squirms but Bokuto doesn’t move.

“No. No, they’re not,  _ bro.”  _  Bokuto puts his palm over one. He can feel Kuroo’s heartbeat, erratic and failing. “They need to come off.”

They’re bruises, they shouldn’t come off, but they’re not bruises, are they? Bokuto moves his hand down and starts picking at one of the black marks with his fingernails. It peels away like the skin of an orange.

And then Kuroo freaks out.

He bucks underneath Bokuto before shoving him fully off with a vicious push to the biceps, voice caught between panting and crying and pleading, “No, no, stop, stop it--”

He doesn’t run, only curls up in a corner of the room, hands shielding the string of bruises protectively. He looks up as the floor creaks under Bokuto’s feet.

Their eyes meet. Kuroo’s are red and tear-stained.

“Why are you trying to take them away?” he asks. His voice cracks. “You gave them to me.”

“I didn’t give that to you, Kuroo.” Bokuto crouches down to his level. “You know that’s not what I gave you.”

Kuroo holds his gaze for a moment more before his eyes drop. His hand drops with them. He doesn’t struggle as Bokuto starts peeling away the rest of the bruises.

When he’s done, Bokuto gathers all the remnants in his hand and takes them into the kitchen. There’s a candle burning on the counter, one that Bokuto lit to set the mood when Kuroo came over.

Kuroo pads behind him, watching as Bokuto burns the bruises one by one over the flame. He doesn’t interfere but he winces with each one.

As the last one crumbles away, the candle takes on the faint scent of pollen and Kuroo’s eyes begin to clear.


	6. grounded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the roof, Kuroo finds birds. And Bokuto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt: late nights/ early mornings

vi. grounded

 

Kuroo finds Bokuto on the roof. He had followed the trail of unlocked doors. Bokuto had left the keys in each lock. Kuroo’s not sure how he got all those keys in the first place.

The path hadn’t been straight up. It started at the front door but then wound its way through the janitors’ closets and down to the boiler room, then up to the second floor where Kuroo found every classroom unlocked, all with the keys stuck in the doors, before skipping past the third, fourth, and fifth floor and finally detouring to the staircase leading up to the roof.

“Bo?” Kuroo calls softly. Bokuto doesn’t turn around but from here, Kuroo can see his feet swinging.

It only makes it more obvious that Bokuto is sitting on the side of his high school, so many stories above the ground.

“Bo, I’m coming over there. Okay?” Bokuto doesn’t answer but he moves over a bit, like he’s making space.

Kuroo pads over and gingerly takes a seat next to Bokuto. His feet dangle and he can feel the distance in his stomach. His fingers dig under the ledge as a breeze washes over them.

“What are we doing up here?” he breathes.

Bokuto hums. “I don’t want to be on the ground anymore.”

“What’s that mean?” Kuroo’s heart pounds as he forces up one of his hands to clasp over Bokuto’s. “Koutarou?”

“Just watch the sun come up with me?” Bokuto finally turns to look at him. His eyes are round and filled with copper. When another wind blows past them, it ruffles Bokuto’s hair and Kuroo can make out the stiff quills of feathers coming from Bokuto’s scalp.

And Kuroo was worried Bokuto was going to jump but maybe that’s not what the worst thing would be.

“Course I’ll stay.”

It’s a Tuesday morning, just before dawn. He just has to last it out long enough for the teachers to start arriving, then maybe he can finally get Bokuto off this roof.

But as gray bleeds into white bleeds into blue and the sun rises, hot and sweltering, no one ever comes. Like the world has deserted them.

Kuroo curls up next to Bokuto, letting his feet dangle. His hands stopped clutching at the ledge a long time ago.

He stays.


	7. yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bokuto needs him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the prompt: the ways you say "I love you"

vii. yours

 

 _Kuroo, you don’t have to answer this_ _but I’m freaking out,_ Bokuto texts.

Kuroo types back, _About the tournament? You’re gonna be great dw_

Bokuto clenches his phone tighter.

_Not about the tournament something’s wrong_

Bokuto runs a hand through his hair and his fingers catch on quills.

_Is this about the   ~~way I love you?~~ _

_No._ Bokuto twitches. His mouth tastes like blood, like old nickel. _Not that_

_What is it then?_

_I think the world is leaking,_ he means to type but his wrist burns and his fingers slip.

_Bo?_

Bokuto stares at the word until his vision blurs. He feels dizzy, hazy, out of his mind. He grabs at his bedsheets for balance but his hands slide through them like river water, like gravel.

And then he’s on the roof of his high school. There’s nothing in his hands, no sheets, no phone, no coins, no flowers. Above him, the sky, so close and so blue, almost oppressive. Below him, a fissure.

The split extends across the roof, the very end of it hanging a meter or two off edge. It’s a handspan or two wide and growing, expanding ever so slowly. When he peers down, it isn’t dark inside. It pulses and throbs, and through it he sees a distorted reflection. His own eyes look back at him, refracted a thousand thousand times.

One of the eyes looking back him breaks eye contact. A moment later, Bokuto hears the door to the roof open. He looks up.

Kuroo is standing in the doorway, looking like he hasn’t walked there at all. The deadbolt in the door is still out but there’s no key in Kuroo’s hand.

“Kuroo.” Bokuto reaches out to him. “I’m glad you’re here. We need you.”

“Need…. me….” Kuroo takes his hand but he looks lost. His gaze skitters.

“The worlds are leaking. We need to seal the crack.” Bokuto guides Kuroo down and Kuroo follows because he trusts him.

He follows because he trusts him.

He follows. Like a lover, like a friend, like a lamb.

Bokuto presses Kuroo’s palm to the beginning of the fissure and gently starts to drag. Like a split forearm spilling over with blood and light, like cut veins, it begins to heal.

They make it all the way to the end of the roof. Kuroo’s knees are dirty and raw from crawling after Bokuto. He falters when Bokuto begins to lead him over the edge.

“Wait—" Kuroo’s voice cracks. He starts struggling to his feet. “I—What—"

His eyes look wild and it’s not until Bokuto tugs at him that Kuroo seems to see him again, finally meeting his gaze.

“Come on, Tetsurou. I need you.” He pulls and for the first time, Kuroo resists.

“I—We— We can’t, we’ll fall, we’ll—we’ll—” Kuroo begs. Bokuto can see the scrapes on his hand from running it over the concrete. He’s bleeding a little bit, bleeding because he followed Bokuto. He’ll follow again.

Bokuto lets go of Kuroo’s hand and steps off the roof.

Kuroo screams and grabs for him. Bokuto lets him tip over the edge. But they don’t fall. The air catches them, cradles them, with Bokuto standing and Kuroo sprawled at his feet.

“Let’s finish this,” Bokuto says. Kuroo’s hand trembles as Bokuto grabs it but he doesn’t resist again.

Kuroo’s palm skates over the crack in the worlds and Bokuto watches so many pairs of mirrored eyes close. Through the split, a thousand thousand other hands seal the fissure, all of them with Kuroo’s callouses.

They’re at the end now. Kuroo is leaning on Bokuto, drained and shaking. Bokuto links their fingers as Kuroo closes the final distance.

And then Bokuto is back in his bedroom, one hand wrapped in his sheets and the other still holding onto Kuroo. Kuroo’s breaths stutter out of his chest. He flinches as Bokuto brings their hands up to kiss Kuroo’s knuckles.

“Are you my Bokuto?” Kuroo murmurs without looking up.

“I’m always yours,” Bokuto answers. Kuroo holds his hand tighter, curls up closer.

The world settles and so do they.

**Author's Note:**

> For [Bokuroo Week](https://bokurooweek.tumblr.com/) I wrote this series of interconnected vignettes but all of them can also be read as stand-alones (except maybe the last one)


End file.
